Rachel: As election night rolls on, we have results from the west coast. Of course, this region has been swinging towards the Democrats for the last few decades, so team blue can certainly breath a sigh of relief as these numbers come in. We start in the Evergreen State, Washington. Even though Washington state was ground zero for the 1994 GOP wave, as Republicans picked up 6 House seats there, Democrats did fairly well there in 2010, despite a grim outlook in other states; they held onto the state's Congressional delegation and Senator Patty Murray won by a surprisingly comfortable margin, almost 5%. Overall, Washington is another good area for the President again, he'll be winning there by 11 points. Also, Senator Maria Cantwell routes here opponent, John Koster. The Republicans, however, will be taking the Governorship. Governor Chris Gregoire was never well-liked to begin with, but still sought a third term anyway. As you may recall, she even lost the jungle primary a few months ago. AG Rob McKenna was always considered a favorite to win overall, and he will be winning despite an otherwise unfavorable climate for his party statewide.

Chris: Some of Gregoire's opponents even called here the "Wicked Witch of the Northwest"! Anyway, moving to Oregon, we have a fairly simple story. Obama will be winning there by about 10 points. Even though, the Romney camp made a better-than-expected effort there, no one was realistically expecting him to win there.

Rachel: California was also largely uncontested by either candidate. While the President will not be repeating his 24-point trouncing of McCain, he still will win the state by about 18 points. Even as other larger states have soured on the President, he always polled very well there and his party even made gains there in 2010. In the Senate race, we can report another lopsided victory. Sn Fransisco attorney Kamala Harris defeats tea party Republican Chuck DeVore by over 20 points for Diane Feinstein's old seat. Some are already comparing Harris to a "female Barack Obama." She'll really be a rising star in Democratic politics. Finally, in the House, we only have one seat changing hands. Dr. Ami Bera will ousting Congressman Dan Lungren. Bera was also seen as a rising star in Democratic politics. Despite his loss in 2010, he was a bright spot for House Democrats; not many doctors are running as Democrats!

Chris: Finally, we have the President's home, Hawaii. He will be crushing Romney with just over 70% of the vote. We also had quite an add Senate race. Senator Dan Akaka faced an Independent challenge from conservative Democrat Ed Case. Still, Akaka, who is popular, also had overwhelming Obama coattails in his favor. Case will be losing that race by almost 30 points. Case tried to build a coalition with Republicans, but Republicans in Hawaii are fairly hard to find...

Chris: We have two more important Congressional races to report, but still, it looks like both parties will retain their respective chamber of the US Congress.

Rachel: Thats right. In our last major Senate call, Senator Conrad will actually be retaining his seat. It looks like his adds emphasizing his seniority and clout on key Committees has payed off. Still, this was by far the closest Senate race in recent North Dakota history. Considering Conrad beat Dalrymple by almost 2-to-1 in 1992, my hat is off to Dalrymple for coming so close to winning tonight.

Finally, our last critical House race was in Colorado. In the newly-drawn 4th district, former Congresswoman Betsey Markey makes a comeback by defeating tea party Republican Ken Buck. Even though Buck was able to raise millions of dollars, mostly from national tea party groups and conservative interests, he was still seen as unelectable by many in this district.

Chris: So, as far as the Congressional bottom lines, here are our final numbers for tonight. While Democrats netted 19 seats in the House, Speaker John Boehner will be holding on to his gavel. Boehner will oversee 223 seats to 212 for Minority Leader Pelosi. It will be interesting to watch the coalitions that Boehner will need to form in order to pass key legislation. In the Senate, we will have 53 Democrats to 47 Republicans.

Rachel: With the AP calling the three states of Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina, we can call the race for President Obama. With these three states, the tally in the Electoral College will stand at 280 for the President as opposed to 258 for the Governor.

Colorado was the only swing state to elect both a Democratic Senator and Governor last year, so Democrats invested heavily in retaining Colorado's 9 electoral votes. Colorado's very popular Governor, John Hickenlooper, was also a string supporter and campaigner for Obama. We can see those efforts paying off tonight as the President pulls out a 5-point win in this battleground state.

In Nevada, the President is clinging onto a 3-point lead, and the AP projects that the outcome of this race will not turn out in the Governor's favor. While the slow economy there was a drag on Obama, the Democratic turnout effort here was second to none; we saw this with Senate Leader Harry Reid in 2010. President Obama racked up 58% in Clarke County, Las Vegas, and Governor Romney could not make up for that elsewhere.

Chris: Finally, despite all the effort Democrats put into North Carolina, such as hosting the DNC, Obama's dozens of campaign stops there, the millions of dollars the national party spent there, the President will be losing the state by about one-point. This comes as something of a consolation prize to the Romney campaign, a quite a few poll showed him trailing there and the Obama campaign emphasized North Carolina so greatly.

Finally, we don't have any actual returns from Alaska, but based on just exit polling, the AP is calling it for Romney.

Rachel: Well, no doubt this has been a landmark, crazy and exciting night to be an American political reporter. With the status quo largely preserved in both in the halls of Congress and in the White House, in which direction will our nation policies go now? At MSNBC we look forward to covering the 2nd part of President Obama's Administration for the next four years. For now though, I'm Rachel Maddow, signing off!